


Last Day Of Winter, First Day Of Spring

by megamagi



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Angst, Don't worry she'll be okay, maybe just a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27979605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megamagi/pseuds/megamagi
Summary: Fairies are born from nature itself, and don't have much stock in the traditional idea of a family. Cirno looks up to Letty as a mother figure anyway. Which makes the fact that she only exists for 3 months at a time kind of painful.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Last Day Of Winter, First Day Of Spring

Last Day of Winter, First Day of Spring

Fairies don't put much faith in the traditional idea of a 'family'. Fairies are simply created from the concepts and forces of natural life, so they don't really understand the concept of parents.

Friends and comrades, of course. Fairies are so childish that it's easy for them to form bonds with eachother. But the idea of having someone older than you that cares for you is an alien concept. A lot of the fairies look up to Cirno due to her (relative) strength, but they still don't view her as much more than another fairy.

A long time ago, shortly after the birth of her child, Letty Whiterock was abandoned by her family and betrayed by her husband. She ran away. She got lost in the mountains during winter, nobody came to look for her, and she perished sad, alone, and cold. A textbook yuki-onna who was already on the verge of being forgotten while she was alive, she was welcomed in Gensokyo with open arms.

Their first meeting was early one winter as Cirno was trying to start a snowball fight with some other fairies. Which would have been fine, but it's kind of hard to have a fair snowball fight with someone who can create the stuff out of thin air, so none of the fairies were too interested in it. But by chance, a stray snowball Cirno threw hit Letty, who was wandering through the area.

Instead of being annoyed at the fairy throwing snowballs at her, Letty simply laughed at it and returned the favor. The snowball fight turned into an ice-themed danmaku duel pretty quickly.

While Cirno lost pretty decisively, she was still impressed by the only other person Cirno's met in Gensokyo with powers similar to her own. Cirno started following her around, asking her questions about her ability, herself, and how she came to Gensokyo. Letty enjoyed hearing about Cirno's antics and pranks with the other fairies.

To Letty, Cirno's enthusiasm and curiosity made her wonder if this is what getting to know her daughter would of felt lilke.

The two wound up bonding very quickly. While Cirno was hardly Letty's child, Letty started to see her as such.

However, there was a problem.

Ever since her death, Letty hated when it got warm. She was at her most comfortable when everyone else complained about the cold, which was part of why she was such a good match for Cirno, but unlike Cirno she simply couldn't stand being awake when it wasn't cold.

It was a pattern she had already fallen into during her years spent haunting the mountain she died on. Rumors about a ghostly ice monster stalking the mountains was more than enough to keep a youkai like her alive, but when the spring came and the snow melted nobody had as much to fear from the cold there, and almost all fear of her vanished until the next winter. As a result, she wound up hibernating until more careless travelers found themselves lost and scared on a snowy mountain again.

This is a habit she wound up maintaining even after she moved to Gensokyo, even if she didn't spend (as much) time tormenting careless hikers. (Really, anyone who tries to climb Youkai Mountain by themselves in the first place is kind of asking for it.)

But for Cirno, who's come to view Letty as a surrogate mother...she's not able to handle it very well.

It's the last day of winter.

The snow's melting, the first vestiges of plant life are starting to bloom, and wildlife is starting to wake up from it's hibernation. This all works together to fill the world with colors and sounds that had been forgotten under the cold of the winter.

Everyone else views this as a time of excitement. Children excited to play outside again, farmers planning their crops for the year, and shrine maidens scheming about how much money they can get from the cherry blossom viewings.

But Cirno sees it as a time of tragedy.

“Letty...can't you just stay just a few more days? Please?”  
  
Despite the raising temperatures, a somewhat large patch of land near the edge of the Misty Lake is still covered with snow several feet deep and temperatures would be the lowest of the winter, if they were natural. As if there's a small patch of winter that never got the message about it being over.

The area has a number of snowmen and snow angels and ice sculptures sitting around. Half of them are smaller and less detailed, but clearly made with just as much love. Sitting in the middle of the area is a small and relatively quaint cottage...made out of solid ice.

“I'm really, really sorry, Cirno. But I've already pushed myself too far.”

Inside were Cirno and Letty. Cirno was clearly on the verge of tears, while Letty looked like she had gone a week without sleep.

“But...but you have to do this **every year**! I hate it! Can't you stay just one time!?”

“I can't, sweetie. You know that. I'd love to, I really would...” Letty's sentence was interrupted by a yawn. “But I just can't. I know how much it must hurt you.”

Cirno pouted. “But...I tried so hard to give you a place to keep winter...”

The localized winter wonderland was created by Cirno. She thought that by making a small amount of winter stay here all year Letty'd have a place to stay awake. But one small pile of snow isn't quite the same as the natural power of winter blanketing the whole land.

“And I do like it! It's very nice here. But I'm tired. I need to rest.”

The small fairy was quiet for a while. Maybe just giving her a little snow wasn't enough. Maybe she had to keep winter itself here forever to make Letty stay.

“Maybe...Letty, if it was winter forever, you could stay forever?”

Cirno smiled hopefully up at her ghostly mom, thinking that she'd maybe found a way to keep her here forever. She thought that if she could make a **little** snow here to keep it cooler, would it actually be that hard to make a **lot** of snow everywhere?

“Well, maybe. But that would definitely be an incident and that would get the shrine maiden mad at you. I wouldn't want to see you getting hurt.”

Cirno wanted to retort, to point out that it's not like Reimu could ever **really** exterminate her, and she could **totally** take her this time...Letty didn't like seeing her die.

Not that she could actually die, consiering the nature of a fairy, but during their first winter together after Letty started getting attached to her, Cirno tried pulling a prank on the sunflower lady using some snow and a pair of chopsticks. What happened to Cirno next should have been pretty expected, but when she revived prepared to laugh about it and go get some food, Letty was all but hysterical.

“I thought you'd died!” “I can't bear to lose another child!” “Please, if not for your sake, be careful for my heart!”

Cirno really didn't understand what Letty was talking about, but her intent came across pretty clear. Letty didn't want to see her get hurt.

In the few years since, Cirno's made it a point to be on her best behavior (for a fairy) during the winter because she didn't want to make Letty cry again.

Cirno looked down, studying her feet for a while. As much as she wanted to keep Letty here forever, she reasoned that Letty probably wouldn't want to see how much trouble she'd get in.

Cirno sniffled a little, and tried to rub the tears out of her eyes. They were getting frozen on her face.

Letty pulled in Cirno for a gentle hug and patted her hair. “You're a good girl, Cirno. I promise I'll be back to play next winter, okay?”

Letty wasn't just looking tired, she was looking...like she wasn't fully there. She seemed slightly transparent, and almost as if she was melting along with the rest of winter. She was starting to look more like the ghost she was.

Cirno wanted to keep begging and bargaining to keep Letty just a little longer, but even she could tell she was fighting a losing battle. She hugged Letty around her waist as she could and buried her face in Letty's soft tummy.

“Can you...” she was trying her hardest to not start sobbing. “at least stay until tonight? Please?”

It's the first day of spring.

Cirno fell asleep snuggled into her surrogate mother, and she woke up alone.

Everyone else, especially the rest of the fairies, were happy and enjoying the warmer weather. But Cirno was sad, alone, and her face was covered with frozen tears.

Fairies always live in the moment. While this made it harder for her to deal with “someone I like will be gone for most of the year”, it also meant that she'd be back to her old self within a few days. But like every other spring, all she wants is to just stay in bed and feel sad.

She can go out and play with the other fairies enjoying spring later. But all she's thinking about is how much she hates spring and how it always takes her most favorite person away from her. Most of the other fairies have learned to leave Cirno alone this early in spring.

“SPRING IS HERE! SPRING IS HERE!”

Unfortunately, some fairies are just too excited about it. Her attempt at going back to bed was ruined by Lily's yelling. She wants to go around heralding the coming of spring to everyone, no matter if they want to hear it or not.

Cirno got up, her melancholy quickly replaced by rage. She hates spring so so much because every year it takes Letty away from her. Every year she wants to just lay down and feel sad about spring. And every year Lily wants to yell about how great it is.

She storms out of the cottage, on her way to the first danmaku duel of the season. If nothing else, this will at least distract her and help her move forward through the year.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not good at writing sad


End file.
